Whanganui High School mufti day raises $1000 for Women's Refuge

A Whanganui High School mufti day has raised more than $1000 for Women's Refuge Whanganui.

The cheque was presented to Women's Refuge Whanganui manager Yvonne Denny last Friday.

Denny said the money would go towards supporting women and children who went into the Women's Refuge safe house.

"It's a hell of a lot of money to raise at a mufti day and we're very grateful," Denny said.

"We do get some government funding, but things like this go a long way to help what we're doing."

Denny said the money had come as a surprise.

"We've just come out of lockdown and there's been a lot going on for all the essential workers, so to get the call to say this is something they've done specifically for us was really cool."

High School community prefects Aranga Molijn and Miriama Joseph were on hand to present the cheque to Denny, with the total coming in at $1008.

The money was raised through High School's Pink Shirt Day, Aranga said.

"It has an anti-bullying focus for the whole day, and we collected money for Women's Refuge as part of that."

Miriama said the mufti day had fallen on a Friday when a number of students were attending courses outside of the school.

"I think we usually have about 1338 students at High School, but even on a Gateway day when a few of us were off school grounds we still managed to get a pretty amazing return."

The New Zealand Gateway Programme is designed to support school students transition into the workforce by offering them workplace learning while still at secondary school.

Mike Tweed
Whanganui Midweek 8/7/20